And soon, Walsh.
Maggie had left Boston, and Steven had been sick with missing her, his love as potent as the hard grain alcohol that flowed through his veins when he tried to forget her. Looking back, he remembered Joe being in a funk too, but then he and Joe were so close they seemed to share everything—highs, lows, moods, failings. And my girlfriend, apparently. It should be Steven marrying Maggie, but now that was impossible. Glory needed her father, not her father’s best friend, and Steven was going to make sure Joe Walsh owned up to his responsibilities.
Tonight.
He turned the corner, ignoring a group coming out of Brannigan’s, loud and lewd and obviously drunk, no matter the law. Something hitched in his chest, and he realized it was a strange mix of regret and gratitude. Regret because that once had been him . . . and gratitude because it no longer was. Maggie came to mind, and his heart ached for all they’d been through, but he vowed to be there for her even if it wasn’t as her husband. He didn’t envy her telling Annie the truth, but she’d promised she would in the morning, and his heart skipped a beat.
Annie. The little girl he’d looked down on, the “kid still wet behind the ears,” had become the woman who’d set the little boy in him free . . . to become the man he’d always hoped to be. A faint smile softened the hard line of his lips. A man now able to love the kind of woman he’d always longed to have. A woman who not only changed his life for the better but that of everyone she knew, from Glory to Aunt Eleanor . . . and now Maggie. The tightness in his chest eased a bit. Part of the reason Maggie had confessed, she said, was because she’d seen something in her sister that struck hard—kindness, honesty, selflessness—things she’d seldom seen in the starstruck world of Hollywood. And, oddly enough, things she’d begun to crave. She’d been baffled when she sensed the same in Steven, a decency that drew her, and she was stunned to realize she wanted what they had. Even if it meant giving up one for the other.
A wavering sigh parted from his lips as he hurried up the steps of Joe’s mom’s perfectly groomed three-decker home, a few streets over from Steven’s in the Southie neighborhood of Boston. Steven had spent as much time on this front porch as he had his own, poring over comic books and playing Mysto Magic, and the memories suddenly thickened in his throat. Joe was the best friend he’d ever had, a brother in every way but blood, and Steven knew he’d forgive him.
Eventually.
He rammed his finger to the doorbell and waited, grateful Mrs. Walsh, a near-deaf widow since a year ago May, would never even wake up. But Joe would, and Steven badgered the button again, fresh adrenaline pumping over what he’d done to Maggie.
The porch light went on, and the door wheeled open. Joe blinked through slits, his stubble as dark as the glare in hazel eyes now blackened to brown. “What the devil are you doing, O’Connor?” he groaned, his voice gruff with sleep. He swiped a hand across a sleeveless T-shirt to scratch a muscular chest matted with sandy hair, then cocked a hip, feet bare beneath plaid pajama bottoms. “For crying out loud, it’s past one in the morning.”
“Outside, Walsh,” Steven ordered, the sight of his half-clad “best friend” boiling his blood when thoughts of him with Maggie flashed through his mind. “Now!”
The scowl on Joe’s face faded into confusion as he opened the screen door. “Don’t be stupid, Steven, come inside and tell me what’s wrong.”
Steven jerked the front of Joe’s T-shirt and yanked him outside before slamming him to the wall. “Twenty years we’ve been friends, Walsh, and we swore no secrets, but you didn’t keep that promise, did you, Joe?”
Joe shoved him away hard, thrusting Steven against the newel post of the porch banister. He was fully awake now, thick arms corded and ready to take Steven on. “What the devil are you talking about, O’Connor? Are you drunk?”
“Nope, dead sober.” Hands itching hot, he bulldozed him to the wall again, two-fisting his shirt to pin him with fire in his eyes. “Just like I was when Maggie told me you slept with her.”
Joe froze. Even in the dim lighting, Steven saw the blood siphon from his face as his body went slack. Lids shuttering closed, he lowered his head when Steven flung him away, sagging against the wall with a hand to his eyes. “Why’d she have to tell you?” he whispered, his voice hoarse with shame. “It was only one time, Steven, and it was a mistake.”
“I’ll say, Walsh. A life-shattering one—yours.”
He looked up then, eyes glazed with anguish, and Steven saw the truth in his face—the torment of a man who loved both his best friend and the woman between them. Like a zombie, Joe lumbered to the far side of the porch, dropping onto the wooden swing where he and Steven ate Good Humor bars in the summer while they traded comic books and army men. He bent as if he were an old man, shoulders stooped and face in his hands. Moving to the railing, Steven eased down on the handrail, arms crossed as he waited for him to speak. When he did, his voice was so broken and low, Steven had to strain to hear it.
“I . . . never, ever intended that to happen, Steven, I swear. We were just friends . . .”
Steven grunted, biting back a curse but not his anger. “Friends don’t sleep together, Walsh, nor stab their best friend in the back.”
“Blast it, O’Connor, I know that,” he hissed, head jerking up and eyes ablaze. “You think this has been easy for me? Knowing I betrayed you both, the friend I’d go to the mat for and the woman I craved? I’ve died a thousand times over what happened that night, despising myself for being a man so in love with my best friend’s girl I was willing to be her best friend too, just to be near her.” He sank back into the swing, arms limp as he wandered off into a glassy stare. “But all she ever wanted was you, and I swear, Steven, if it’d been any other man, I would have bloodied him.” He glanced up then, resignation sagging every muscle in his face. “But I knew she deserved better than me, and it didn’t take a quarter of the brains in my head to figure out that was you. You were always the smart one, the kid the teachers loved, and that blasted guy girls always went crazy for.” A sheen of moisture glimmered in his eyes while a muscle jerked in his throat. “But I love you like a brother, Steven, and I swear I never intended for that to happen . . . nor saw it coming.”
Steven exhaled slowly, his anger finally drifting out with a billow of air that collided with the cool of the night. “How did it happen?” he said quietly.
Joe sucked in a deep breath and massaged the bridge of his nose, his voice as flat and dead as the wood banister Steven straddled. “Maggie didn’t act like it in front of you, but she was devastated when you guys broke up. I can’t tell you how many nights she cried, and I always gave her a shoulder to cry on and nothing else, I swear.” He hung his head, avoiding Steven’s eyes as he peered at the floor. “Until the night she saw you kissing Erica at the Pier.” He shook his head, grief weighting his features. “I’d never seen her like that before—depressed, crazy, ready to rip Erica’s eyes out. So I got her out of there fast. Pop lent me his car that night, so I planned to drive her back to the dorm, only . . .” He licked his lips, fingers fidgeting on the wood slats of the swing. “I was scared because she was talking crazy, acting like she was going to hurt herself to get your attention, and I . . . I wanted to stay . . . make sure she was okay, you know? Only she was bent on drinking to forget and begged me for some of that giggle water you and I stashed, so we drove to Lover’s Landing because that’s where she wanted to go.”
Steven closed his eyes, guilt stabbing. The same parking spot, the same car as our first time . . .
Joe inhaled and the air shuddered from his body as he glanced up, sorrow wet in his eyes. “The truth is, we got plastered, Steven, literally fried to the hat, and one thing led to another and the next thing I knew . . . ,” his Adam’s apple shifted while his voice trailed low, “we’re waking up the next morning in the backseat of the car, guilty, awkward, and sick to our stomachs.” The edge of his lip crooked. “And I mean literally—Maggie threw up all over me and Pop’s car.”
“Good,” Steven said, fighting to stay mad. His eyes went hard. “So who made the first pass, Walsh—you or her?”
He hesitated and swallowed hard, his face creased and riddled with hurt. “She did, Steven, but I suspected all along she only did it to make you pay and I know I should have stopped it, all of it—the Landing, the booze, the necking in the car.”
“The baby?”
The word hissed from his lips before he could bite it back, and he may as well have spit in Joe’s face. The whites of his eyes splayed wide while his jaw went slack, and his skin leeched as pasty as if he’d just come off that drunk he’d had with Maggie.
“What?” It was a rasp, shallow and harsh. “What are you talking about?”
Steven stared, and suddenly he no longer saw the buddy who’d slept with his girl but the best friend who’d shared his lunch, his toy soldiers, and his comic books for most of his life. The kid he took a bullet for when Joe ruined his father’s tie in a magic trick gone awry, and the kid who’d slammed Wilbur Morrison to the ground after he blackened Steven’s eye. They were as close to family as two boys could be, mingling blood via an army knife in a pup tent in the Walshes’ backyard. Steven’s heart twisted as he swallowed the emotion in his throat, the slice of the blade then as sharp as the blade that severed them now—as brothers, partners, and friends who shared everything but this.
Fatherhood.
And yet, somehow, Steven shared his pain.
Heart heavy, Steven moved to sit on the far end of the swing, head bent and hands clasped on knees splayed wide. He felt Joe’s stare burning into his profile and exhaled, eyes fixed on the spindles in the wraparound porch. “Think about it, Joe,” he whispered. “Maggie went away for a year shortly after that.” He looked over then, meeting Joe’s gaze, empathy burning in his chest. “She had a baby girl in California, and she told me it was mine, which is why I proposed.” He turned to peer out into the brisk night studded with stars, squinting up into the sky. “Made me promise not to say anything to any of my friends till we got married, especially you.”
The weathered wood of the swing groaned when Joe slumped back. Sweat glazed his forehead like the shock that glazed his eyes, and when his fingers rose to absently press at his temples, they quivered as much as Steven’s insides at the thought of what lay ahead for his best friend.
His touch to Joe’s shoulder produced no reaction as Joe continued in a blank stare, breathing ragged.
Steven gripped his arm. “Joe, you need to know your daughter’s in Boston.”
That did the trick. Joe’s head jerked up, mouth gaping so wide, it could have been a yawn. “What?” Every muscle in his face seemed to work at the same time, cheek twitching, lip quivering, and a spasm in his temple that matched the one in his eyes. His voice was a rasp tinged with awe. “M-my daughter? In B-boston?”
“Yeah,” Steven said quietly, cuffing his shoulder. “She’s a great kid, Joe, so much life and fun, she’s a true chip off the old block.”
Moisture stung Steven’s lids when a flash of tears brimmed in Joe’s eyes. “Y-you . . . you’ve s-seen her?” he whispered, his throat working hard to push the words from his tongue.
“Yeah, I have, Joe, and I love her like my own.”
Sandy brows pinched hard in confusion. “But when? How?”
He squeezed Joe’s shoulder once more before letting go, then inhaled for strength. “It’s Annie’s little sister, Glory.”
Joe stared for several seconds, all air suspended, and then, body crumpling, he buried his face in his hands, elbows quivering as he wept.
Steven felt every single heave as if it were his own, and rising to his feet, he distanced himself to give Joe space, hip cocked against the railing and arms folded as he stared into the shadowed street. Moments passed before silence fell, and with the faint squeak of the swing, he turned to face his best friend. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Joe said with a hoarse chuckle, resting his head on the back of the swing. “Although a blow to the gut would have been kinder.”
Steven strolled over to sit, lips quirked. “Don’t think I didn’t consider it.” He huffed out a sigh. “So, what happens from here?”
A grunt tripped from Joe’s lips. “I’m going to meet my daughter, that’s what.”
“She doesn’t know, Joe. Maggie and I planned to tell her after we married.”
Joe nodded. “I know, it’s a delicate situation to say the least.” He glanced up, a steel glint in his eyes. “But she’s my daughter, Steven, my blood, and by God, I will be a part of her life.”
A smile flickered at the edge of Steven’s mouth. “Never doubted it for a minute.”
Drawing in a deep breath, Joe released it again with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry for putting you through this, for betraying you . . .” His chest rose and fell as the barest trace of a smile appeared. “But I gotta tell you, Steven, this might just border on being one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.” Tears glistened in his eyes and he leaned forward, elbows on his knees and body taut with excitement as he rested his chin on folded hands. “Kids are the greatest things God ever put on this planet, and to think he took the biggest mistake of my life and turned it into this . . .” He shook his head, throat convulsing with a hard swallow. He shot Steven a sideways glance. “I’ll tell you what, you have my word—I’m going to do right by Glory.”
“I know that, Walsh,” Steven said. His gaze met Joe’s. “But what about Maggie?”
A harsh chuckle erupted from his throat. “Yeah, like Maggie would ever consider me when she’s in love with you.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
Joe flashed him a sharp look. “Why?” His tone was terse . . . and yet held a thread of hope.
“Because Maggie’s in love with her little girl and wants to be a mom more than anything in this world. Which is why she was willing to go so far as to trick me and close her eyes to the hurt she might cause her sister. She was in denial, Joe, a woman so desperate to become a mom to her daughter, she was willing to do almost anything.”
The edge of Joe’s mouth tipped up. “Including marrying me, I suppose?” A grin hovered. “You saying a gal would have to be desperate to marry me, O’Connor?”
Steven grinned. “Pretty much.”
Joe’s laughter rang out into the frigid night, clouds of warm air swirling into the heavens above. Steven smiled. Like my prayers . . .
“Well, heaven knows I won’t find the woman I love in a more vulnerable position.” He chuckled again, eyes in a squint. “You really think she’d consider marrying a clown like me?”
Steven slid him a sideways glance. “She’d be crazy not to, Joe. You already have a foundation of friendship and you like each other.”
A grin split Joe’s face. “Well, I do anyway . . .”
“She will too, Joe, in time. But you’re gonna have to woo her, lure her into falling in love with you.”
Joe cocked his head. “Yeah? And how do I do that, O’Connor, since you’re the all-fire expert when it comes to Maggie Kennedy?”
Sinking back in the swing, Steven folded his arms, studying Joe with a pensive smile. “A proper courtship, dates alone, dates with her and Glory, and all aboveboard, with you in control.”
“In control?” His grunt echoed in the stillness of morning. “It’s one thing to be friends with Maggie, but for me to date her? Not sure it’s possible to be in control in that scenario.”
“You have no choice,” Steven said with a weary sigh. “Your future, Glory’s, and Maggie’s depend on it.” He scratched the edge of his brow. “Maggie’s as tempting as that apple in the Garden of Eden, Joe. You want to taste it, you want to bite it, you want to swallow it whole, but if you do, I’m telling you right now, it will be the fall of man.”
“What do you mean?” Ridges popped in Joe’s face.
“I mean if you start dating Maggie, she’s going to do her best to tempt you in every way possib
le, because underneath that beautiful body is a very insecure woman who needs to know the man in her life finds her attractive. The more you turn her away, the harder she’ll try, which is why we had so many problems staying out of trouble.” He sighed, his smile going flat. “Trust me, I was raised in a devout family, so in the beginning I actually did have the morals to say no, but all it did was make her desperate to get me under her spell, which, regrettably, she did.”
“Ha! Maggie—desperate for me? Now that’s something I’d like to see.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, Steven, I don’t think I’m strong enough. I’ve always been over the edge about Maggie anyway. God knows I won’t be able to say no to the woman if she starts kissing on me.”
“Yeah, you’re right, he does.”
“Huh?”
Steven angled to face him, arm draped over the swing. “God does know exactly how weak we are, Joe, but it doesn’t matter ’cause he’s strong enough for the both of us.”
Joe blinked, eyes in a squint. “Come again?”
“I mean that in order to win Maggie’s heart, you’re going to need God’s help—his strength, his guidance, and his confidence.” He fixed Joe with a firm gaze. “Ever since I’ve known you, Joe, you’ve always acted like second fiddle to me, like you’re not as smart as me or as attractive to the girls as you think I am.”
“Not think, Steven, know.”
Steven shook his head. “See? That’s what I’m talking about. You have this crazy idea you don’t measure up as a man, and the reason I know is because I had it too. When I was a kid, I killed myself trying to please my father, because I never thought I was good enough next to Sean, never felt like I earned Pop’s trust like Sean did. And then when I hit college, I flat-out didn’t care anymore, and any trust Pop may have had died on the vine.” He scrubbed his face with his hand, heaving a weary sigh. “So when I met Annie, I was scared to death I couldn’t trust myself to be the kind of man I needed to be—for her. Ironically, it was Annie herself who held the key—living for God instead of yourself.”